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Ethena and Hyperliquid Pull Altcoins Away From Bitcoin

ENA is benefiting from a deal with FalconX, while HYPE is close to a record after signals about U.S. CFTC rules. Bitcoin dominance, however, remains high.

By Luc Vesters
• 2 min read
Ethena and Hyperliquid Pull Altcoins Away From Bitcoin

Key Takeaways

  • Altcoins kept pulling away from Bitcoin on Friday, but market data still does not show a broad altseason.
  • Ethena rose 48.3% in 24 hours after an announcement of a $1 billion secured warehouse facility with FalconX.
  • Hyperliquid moved closer to its record, while Bitcoin dominance stayed at 59.8% and the altcoin season index stood at 33 out of 100.

Altcoins kept pulling away from Bitcoin on Friday afternoon, but there is still no broad altseason. The rally that started on Wednesday after the announcement of a U.S. Treasury bond buyback extended for a third straight day, with only a few tokens clearly breaking away from the rest of the market.

Ethena Stands Out

Ethena’s ENA was the biggest mover. Since midnight UTC, the token rose 26.4% to $0.1475 (€0.13), bringing its 24-hour gain to 48.3% and its weekly gain to 77.2%. The move came alongside the announcement of a $1 billion secured warehouse facility with FalconX, where the assets behind the USDe synthetic dollar are being used for overcollateralized institutional lending instead of the crypto basis trade.

ENA’s sharp rise also has to do with its earlier price action. For months, the token mostly moved sideways between $0.06 (€0.051) and $0.10 (€0.085) after falling from above $0.80 (€0.68). That left little supply above the market when buyers came back. Trading volume climbed to $1.04 billion (€0.9 billion), nearly three-quarters of the token’s market cap and 319% higher than in the previous 24 hours.

HYPE Nears a Record

Hyperliquid also drew a lot of attention. HYPE touched $77.87 (€67) on Friday and traded around $76.85 (€66), just above the June 16 record of around $76.87 (€66). The token is not recovering from a steep drop, but instead breaking into new highs after still trading around $52 (€44) in early August.

The move came after President Trump’s comment during a White House meeting that the CFTC is working on a way to make the crypto exchange fully compliant with the U.S. market. That fits into a broader trend in which U.S. regulators are increasingly trying to build frameworks for on-chain financial products, with attention to innovation and consumer protection. The focus on usage, revenue, and value creation is playing a bigger role too; that lines up with the broader shift we are seeing in how investors judge tokens.

Why This Matters

For European crypto followers, the main point is that this rally is not broad-based. Bitcoin dominance is at 59.8%, only 0.1% lower, while CoinMarketCap’s altcoin season index is at 33 out of 100, after peaking at 51 last week. That suggests the market is still mostly reacting to individual catalysts, rather than a general rotation out of Bitcoin.

Other tokens joined in too. Curve, Fetch.ai, Pudgy Penguins, Pump.fun, and Pepe all rose about 18% to 21% in 24 hours. Bitcoin Cash even gained 26.7%, although trading volume there fell 10%, showing that not every move comes with the same level of conviction.

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